The social organisation of individuals under the jurisdiction of, and as participants in government can be defined by three broad categories. These are; the intrinsic, the emergent and the dispossesive. These can be used to inform the extent of government, and derive its responsibilities.
Intrinsic
The intrinsic categories are the conditions that need to be met for and individual to agree to government, and for the government to be legitimate. One of the intrinsic values of an individual is a natural defiance of tyranny. Whether by action, or social organization, individuals seek to remove tyranny from their interactions. Tyranny is being under the arbitrary will of another, especially in the respect of an individual's person or property.
Australian Republicanism is devoted to defeating tyranny in government, not matter what its form, and ensuring that all individuals under the jurisdiction of a government, are, without exception, secure in their political rights. These begin with the freedom from government tyranny. As soon as a government practices tyranny against an individual, or minority, then it is no longer legitimate.
Without the protection of an individuals political rights, there is no reason for an individual to agree to be under the government. If the oppression is so strong, then an individual would be better off in nature without government. This assumes of course that a government would allow the individual to do so. In most cases, particularly nation-state, immigration is tightly controlled, and new members of the population have little choice.
The intrinsic component of social organisation raises the democrat as the dominating political philosophy. One where government is permanently responsible to the people, if not directly populated by the people. Representative government was developed in a time where property was held by a small number of people, where education was a privilege and while communications came no faster than a horse or sailing ship.
Today we live in a society where a significant minority are as well educated as the leaders of Executive government. Where communications have been transformed into a global decentralised network, of such low cost, that everyone can be a publisher. There is also more equality in wealth and property, due to the rise of the middle class in the twentieth century. It is in this environment that the democrat must discern new political technologies and methods to guarantee our political rights, and the responsiveness of government to the people.
Social, cultural and economic prosperity is impossible without maximum liberty.
Emergent
Complex systems interact in a way that makes their output greater than the sum of their inputs. These can be termed the emergent properties. This would include society, culture and economy. Quality engineers often spend a great deal of time mapping and charting their complex system through statistical modelling, and then intrude upon them by what is known as "selective tampering". Unless every input and output is known, this selective tampering often makes the system vary more in quality, rather than hone it. As a consequence Quality Engineers use reductionism to try and make the inputs and outputs known.
In very large complex system, the inputs and outputs are largely unknown - simply due to the sheer size of the system, and the near infinite number of possible interactions. In these systems, interference, or selective tampering in nearly all cases results in an inferior outcome. This is because interference adds a cost to interaction between actors in the system. Hampering the natural outcome.
Government does have a role as not only an actor in the system, but often simply because of its economic size and its ability to legislate through its monopoly on violence, as a dominantly influential actor. It is a yellow point. Currently the government consumes about 35% of Australia's GDP in taxation. This makes it by far the largest economic actor in Australia.
This is not necessarily a good thing. Government is by structure, and design, a centralised system which collapses political, coercive and economic power into a few individuals. This skews, and often obliterates the emergent properties of a society, culture and economy. Since World War II, and in particular the 1980s, Australians have been sensitive to government involvement in the economy, believing that it produces inferior outcomes in relation to the creation of wealth, and the economy's ability to meet a market.
However, we have also seen in the last fifty years a willingness for government to interfere in societal and cultural issues. More recently we have seen the self-professed "culture wars", which is government and conservative commenteriat backed. Society and culture are complex emergent systems which work more efficiently without government intervention. They are no different to the economy in this aspect.
Dispossessive
The existence of the state carries its own burden. These are commonly externalised in the form of taxes. A common phrase is that taxes buy civilisation. In reality, taxes buy a judicial system which can hold-off tyranny and ensure that interactions between individuals have an equitable basis.
The establishment of social programs such as unemployment benefits and pensions have helped remove the troughs and stings in poverty. Empirical evidence shows the social value of such programs. It would be silly to deny their use, and that government has no role in these areas. By the same token, any of these programs should be predicated by the emergent properties defining them. For instance, it is perfectly acceptable for a society to decide that there is a level of poverty no-one should fall below. It is also perfectly acceptable for a society to decide there is a level of access to health that no-one should be denied. It is not acceptable for government to decide these things for society.
Government involvement in these areas carries danger, not only from government inertia to change, but because government involvement infringes on liberty and inevitably retards the emergent process of society, culture and economy. For this reason any social program must be founded in empirical studies to ensure they have true benefit, and are not ideological fashion, or populist pandering. This is true for all government action.
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In a previous article titled,
Social Organization
, the three broad categories of social organisation in relation to government were explored. Equality, rather than being a universal concept, is adaptive, and follows the demands of the categories of intrinsic, emergent and dispossesive. It is in the intrinsic category that liberty and justice combine to ensure the uniform equity of every individual under the government's jurisdiction through universal political rights.
Intrinsic Equity
The intrinsic component of the government system is where equity must be absolute. Political rights must be uniform for all who are under the jurisdiction of the government. Liberty must be equal for all individuals. The justice system must be replicable, uniform, non-discriminative and accessible to all. The intrinsic component is the most primal essence of political equality.
The intrinsic component of social organization is derived from humanity's natural resistance to tyranny. The Constitution speaks to the intrinsic nature of organisation and is not complete unless it eradicates tyranny and provides safeguards for any tyranny which may leak through.
Maximum liberty and uniform justice are the paths to equality in the intrinsic component.
Emergent Equity
Modern economists often argue for economic liberty which limits the interference of government on the allocation of capital, and manufacturing quotas. This was largely in response to socialism in the early part of the twentieth century. The decentralised nature, and innovation of capitalism and economic liberty out-competed the Soviet Union's economy over a period of approximately thirty years, leaving the Soviet Union on the brink of economic collapse.
Society and culture are similarly complex systems who respond with great vigour to liberty and unrestrained growth. Government interference in society and culture is as damaging as Government interference in the allocation of capital and manufacturing quotas. At its most extreme this is totalitarianism. But all nation-state governments practice a form of nationalism, in one way or another. This is to create a false legitimacy in the government beyond ensuring equity of liberty and justice. Nationalism is an intrusion on society and culture.
The emergent component is the public realm of complex interaction. Like all complex systems they are at their most invigorated and innovative when the interactions occur without interference. Political rationalism became a by-word in Australian economic theory in the 1980s, Cultural and Societal rationalism need to become as common in political debate as economic rationalism has become.
Dispossessive Equity
The dispossesive is the burden of maintaining government. This includes ensuring that political rights are not infringed, that justice and access to the judicial system is universal, and that liberty is protected. The dispossesive can also encapsulate emergent programs that the electorate requires to be taken on. In the last century that has included programs such as universal education, welfare to protect against poverty and retirement. This raises issue as to how the funds necessary to support these programs can be raised.
The goal of any social organisation is to foment prosperity. This can be taken as the starting point for an equitable system of taxation. Those that have prospered from economic liberty have a moral responsibility to not only maintain the present system of maximum liberty, but also to ensure those that have not prospered by it, are given every opportunity to achieve in this environment. It can be derived from this principle, that taxation should not begin until after the point of prosperity.
There are two ways to determine the point of prosperity, either as those who are above the average salary, or corporate taxable income. Or those that earn the top half of all income, either private or corporate taxable income. For instance, in 2002/2003 total private income was $352,499,306,474 which was shared amongst 8,634,249 taxpayers. For corporate tax total taxable income was 156,777,560,537 shared amongst 664,146 businesses.
Using the average income as the point of prosperity;
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Personal income tax would not begin until $40,800.00
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Corporate income tax would not start until $236,052.00
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Combined income tax, both personal and corporate, would not begin until $54,770.00
Using half of total taxable income as the point of prosperity;
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Personal income tax would not begin until $60,000.00
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Corporate income tax would not start until > $1,000,000.00 (tax tables have no data about the number of businesses with over $1 million of taxable income)
I find using those that have half of the taxable income is a more equitable system of taxation. This would have the added advantage of removing the highly regressive nature of the current Australian taxation brackets. Those that have prospered carry an equal burden in ensuring not only maximum liberty remains, but also that those who have not prospered in such a system, get every opportunity to do so. This equal burden should be carried through to the taxation system. I recommend that;
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A personal tax rate of 30% for those who earn income that is in the top half of all income. This would be adjusted every year. Currently this point is ~ $60,000
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A corporate tax rate of 30% for all companies who have taxable income in the top half of all corporate taxable income. This would be adjusted every year. Currently this is ~ $1,000,000
The danger in this system is that government would skew the equitable nature of it by giving all manner of tax breaks and resulting in the 11,000 page mess of a tax code we have now. But we have that mess now. Adopting this equitable and prosperous model of dispossession, we would have a simpler, fair, and more just system of taxation than the current one.
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Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley

I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;